Not a single city from Chhattisgarh has made it to the list of new ‘smart cities’ mission list announced by the Union Ministry of Urban Development and Urban Poverty Alleviation recently. Notably, a total of 27 smart cities were announced which are from 12 States including 5 from Maharashtra, 4 each from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, 3 from Uttar Pradesh and 2 each from Punjab and Rajasthan. Nagaland and Sikkim have made it to the smart city list for the first time, officials informed.
The Golden Temple city of Amritsar topped the list of 27 new smart cities announced by the Minister of Urban Development and Urban Poverty Alleviation M Venkaiah Naidu recently. Eight other cities of pilgrim and tourism importance that made to the third list of smart cities are ; Ujjain, Tirupati, Agra, Nashik, Madurai, Thanjavur, Ajmer and Varanasi. With this the number of cities selected under Smart City Mission for financing implementation of smart city plans has gone up to 60.
Announcing the cities that were selected in a competition among 63 cities, Naidu said “The willingness and enthusiasm among cities to participate in more than one round of competition is a clear evidence of the urban renaissance set in motion.”
The Minister informed that the new 27 smart cities have proposed an investment of Rs 66,883 cr under smart city plans including Rs 42,524 crore under Area Based Development and another Rs 11,379 crore for technology based Pan-city solutions that benefits all the citizens of respective cities. With this, the total investment proposed by the 60 cities selected so far has gone up to Rs 1,44,742 crore , he said.
With a view to ensuring proper implementation of the Centrally sponsored ‘Smart City Mission”, the Chhattisgarh Government has announced formation of two State-owned companies for execution of the projects for Raipur and Bilaspur cities. The Government has formed ‘ Raipur Smart City ltd’ and Bilaspur Smart City ltd’, officials informed.
CM Raman Singh in July this year had informed Chhattisgarh legislative Assembly that a provision of Rs 327 crore had been made for Raipur Smart City project in the supplementary budget .
Notably, till May this year, the Raipur city had improved the quality of 'smart city' plans by 25 per cent to finally find its place in the list of 13 cities chosen by the Central government for development as a ‘smart city’. In June this year , a meeting of State-level high-powered Steering Committee formed for Smart City Mission for Bilaspur city was chaired by Chief Secretary Vivek Dhand.
According to official information, the estimated cost of Bilaspur Smart City project is Rs 4,399 crore. During the meeting, the Bilaspur smart city proposal was approved and was recommended to be sent to the Central Government for approval.
Commissioner, Bilaspur Municipal Corporation, Soumil Ranjan Choubey who was present during the meeting informed that according to the directives of the Mission and standards of major world class cities various component of urban development have been included in the project.
For successful execution of the Mission, about 40 memorandum of understandings (MoUs) have been signed with different departments/institutions for mutual cooperation that are in the limits of Bilaspur Municipal Corporation, he added.